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Toronto News and Views

Toronto Marathon should be banned

by arthur Weinreb,

October 20, 2004

a fatality occurred during the running of last weekend's Toronto Marathon when a 42-year-old Guelph Ontario man suffered a heart attack while nearing the end of the 21 kilometre half-marathon. The unnamed man was the second person to die in the event's 10 year history.

The Toronto Marathon has to be banned. although two deaths in 10 years may not sound like a lot, in round numbers it is more or less two more than the number of people in Toronto who have died from eating previously unfrozen sushi. and as well, we all know, when he's not yelling at hospital employees and officials, Ontario's Minister of Health, Georgie Smitherman, is proposing to ban the consumption of sushi unless it has been previously frozen. If banning things was only the result of an Ontario cabinet minister having too much time on his hands and having a hate on for raw fish that would be one thing. But banning less dangerous products or activities is the Canadian way. at least it's the Toronto way.

Recently we have seen bans or proposed bans on smoking in bars, pesticides, taxicabs that are more than two years old, pit bulls and dogs that look like pit bulls. How can the Toronto Marathon continue to be run when the cause of two deaths are so obviously related to the event?

Dr. Chris Woollam, the medical director of the marathon (okay, stop right there--the fact that the Toronto Marathon even needs a medical director is proof positive that the run has to be banned for health reasons) told the media that marathon runners over 40 should assess their health before running a marathon.

Since when have citizens become responsible for their own health? adults can't decide to smoke in a bar with other consenting adults or use a pesticide or now it appears, eat sushi that has not been previously frozen. Where did this radical idea that people are responsible for their own health ever come from? The doctor's statement is a shameful expression of individual responsibility that has absolutely no place in 21st century Toronto. It will only be a matter of time before laws are proposed to outlaw smoking in cars and then homes and then limiting the number of Big Macs that people can eat. Yet the radical suggestion is made that people be allowed to run, even though that activity can result in serious injury or death.

although death from marathon running is rare (although seemingly not as rare as dying from eating previously un-frozen or "improper" sushi) injuries and illness are not. The Toronto Marathon "medical tent" was staffed by 30 medical personnel to treat the various ills of the runners. The tent was packed to capacity this year as cold temperatures and strong winds led to all kinds of health problems. We simply cannot let this sort of activity to continue. We might as well just hand out cigarettes to people (except for the homeless--they are already receiving them) and tell them to go ahead and die.

all the people who ran in the marathon and later died or required medical treatment were in seemingly good health--or else they never would have attempted the run. So, requiring people to make their own health determinations prior to running simply won't do. The marathon just has to go. People wouldn't risk death, illness or serious injury if they spent their Sundays the way God intended them to--watching football on TV.

Of course the city of Toronto will never ban the marathon. The lefties on council get too much enjoyment out of the traffic chaos that the event causes to ever want to see it disappear. The many road closures, especially those that were unannounced and caused some to be stranded in their vehicles for hours, must have been especially pleasing to the bicycle-riding, car-hating set at Toronto City Hall. The runner who died while participating in the run simply died for the cause. Not a high price to pay to watch motorists fume.

The only hope for banning the event lies with the province whose slogan should be "today sushi--tomorrow, the marathon".